A teacher was jailed for 3 days due to mistaken identity. He claims 'humiliation' by cops

ASBURY PARK, N.J. – John McCarthy didn’t belong in the Ocean County Jail.

The 56-year-old Toms River resident certainly had no criminal record.

But after McCarthy drove from a visit with his parents in Lakewood in October, he was stopped by a township police officer, who told him there was a warrant out for his arrest — for failing to appear in court in Burlington County on a theft charge.

It had to be a mistake, an astonished McCarthy told the officer. He couldn’t remember ever being in Burlington County, and he certainly was never arrested there.

"I think I would remember being arrested in Burlington County," McCarthy said in an interview.

Despite McCarthy's insistence, the officer put the Jackson school district music teacher in the back of a police cruiser and took him to the Lakewood police station and then to the Ocean County Jail in Toms River.

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There, a nightmarish ordeal played out over the next three days. It would ultimately follow the educator into his classroom — he teaches at Carl W. Goetz Middle School — and raise questions about the steps police agencies take to confirm that those taken into custody are who the police say they are.

McCarthy said he figured what he knew to be a mistake would be cleared up at the jail. Instead, a corrections officer booked him and put him in a cell.

And there, McCarthy sat until Oct. 24 — three days after his arrest — because officials ignored his repeated protests that they had made a mistake, including attaching the wrong photograph to the arrest warrant, according to the legal notice of tort claim filed by Thomas Mallon, a Freehold attorney representing McCarthy in a potential lawsuit.

While McCarthy was locked up, the middle school where he teaches was abuzz with news of his arrest, and members of the school band had to rehearse for their upcoming holiday concert without their bandleader.

It was only after a corrections officer spotted McCarthy in jail and recognized him as the music teacher at his kid's school did jail officials dig deeper and learn that McCarthy had been telling the truth all along: police had the wrong guy.

A matter of one letter

The notice of tort claims states that several officials and agencies either ignored McCathy's protests or facts that should have tipped them off that something was amiss.

As it turns out, the person the Burlington County Sheriff’s Department was looking for was Jon McCarthy — without an "h" in his first name — born 10 days apart from John McCarthy in October of 1963, Mallon said.

But the photograph on the warrant issued by the Burlington County Sheriff’s Office was of John McCarthy, who has taught at Goetz for 32 years, Mallon said.

The sheriff's officers in Burlington County had gotten the teacher's photo from the state Division of Motor Vehicles and attached it to the warrant for Jon McCarthy, the wanted fugitive, Mallon said.

The mistake became evident after Deputy Warden Joseph Valenti and Sgt. Chantannette Ketelaar, the jail’s classification supervisor, contacted police in Evesham Township, the Burlington County municipality where Jon McCarthy was arrested on the theft charge.

They obtained the arrest photo — and it wasn’t of John McCarthy at all.

“They gave him a ride home and apologized," Mallon said.

But John McCarthy soon learned, when he returned to the classroom, that his arrest had not gone unnoticed. There were social media posts about it, with laughing comments from his students.

“My kids (students) were showing me my mugshot" on a website that features people who have been arrested in New Jersey, McCarthy said.

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“Word spread quickly in the school, where he’s a music teacher," Mallon said. “There were memes all over the school and on the internet. He’s embarrassed deeply."

Mallon has put Lakewood, Ocean County and the Burlington County Sheriff’s Office on legal notice that the teacher may be suing them over his mistaken arrest, claiming "extreme humiliation as well as significant emotional distress."

John C. Sahradnik, the attorney who represents Ocean County, said he couldn’t comment because the matter is the subject of potential litigation.

“This is not a lawsuit, only the first stage of a process when someone wants to sue a branch of the government," said Steven Secare, the attorney who represents Lakewood. He declined to comment further.

Calls placed to the Burlington County Sheriff’s Office seeking comment were not returned.

'A big red flag'

As McCarthy recalls, Oct. 21 had been a routine Monday — until the arrest.

McCarthy went to visit his parents in Lakewood after school, and then he drove to Lake Carasaljo in Lakewood, where he took a two-mile walk to get some exercise and kill time before a meeting that he had expected to attend that evening.

As McCarthy sauntered back to his car after his walk, a police cruiser pulled into the parking lot. McCarthy waved to the police officer as he got in his car to drive away.

“Two minutes later, he’s behind me with his lights on," McCarthy recalled.

Lakewood Officer Matthew McAvoy said to him, “Do you know there’s a warrant out for your arrest?" McCarthy recalled.

“I said, ‘That’s news to me,’" McCarthy said.

The next thing he knew, he was placed in the back of the police cruiser.

“I see my picture," he said. “I see a little red line that says, ‘Wanted.’"

To McCarthy, an Eagle Scout with relatives who are police officers, it was surreal.

“I don’t think my mind could process the fact that I was being arrested," he said. “I kept waiting for someone to pick up on the fact that I was not this person."

But now he was on his way to Lakewood police headquarters, a pit stop before being taken to the Ocean County Jail in Toms River.

McCarthy wasn’t fingerprinted at the Lakewood police station, and the Lakewood officer apparently didn’t notice that the spelling of McCarthy’s first name and his date of birth were different from the information on the warrant, Mallon said.

Had McAvoy picked up on that and investigated further, he might have realized he was arresting the wrong guy, the notice of tort claim states.

When McCarthy got to the jail, the mistake was compounded, Mallon said. McCarthy was fingerprinted at the jail, but his prints weren’t on file anywhere — a clear sign that he was never in the system, Mallon said.

“That should have been a big red flag," Mallon said. “They should have made a phone call right away."

But that didn’t happen. The "mistake in the system was still ignored,"the notice of claim states.

“The next thing I know, they’re taking my clothes and issuing me prison wear," McCarthy said.

'You're just inviting a mistake'

In his jail cell, McCarthy overheard other prisoners talking.

“I heard, ‘I shot somebody, I assaulted somebody,’" he recalled. “Even though nobody messed with me, the fact that I’m in there with other inmates who did some pretty bad things, it was kind of scary."

McCarthy said he didn’t get his blood pressure medication while he was in the jail. His parents and wife were “freaking out," he said. He didn’t get to take a shower until Oct. 24 — three days after he was taken into custody.

He spent his time doing push-ups against the wall. To keep himself entertained, “I took the wrapper off the toilet paper and made a ball, like Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape,'" McCarthy said.

On Oct. 24, after a corrections officer recognized McCarthy as the music teacher at the middle school, Valenti, the deputy warden, and Ketelaar, the jail's classification supervisor, secured the mug shot of the wanted man from Evesham police, Mallon said.

The mistake was then clear.

“They were very apologetic and very nice, admitting the mistake," McCarthy said of the jail officers who gave him a ride home. “I was just happy to get out."

Once he was sprung, McCarthy said he still had to meet with the Jackson schools superintendent to get clearance to go back to class, he said.

He had to use personal days for the workdays that he missed, McCarthy said. Meanwhile, he also missed a week of band rehearsal, which he said was crucial, with the holiday concert approaching.

While McCarthy knows his arrest was a mistake, he said he wonders how the incident will impact his reputation among the parents of his students. He noted how important parental support of the school band is.

“I would hope my reputation would be such that it would stand and weather this situation," he said.

Mallon said he hopes the mistake serves as a lesson to the agencies that made it. In particular, he said that Burlington County sheriff's officers should have gotten the wanted subject’s mug shot from police instead of a picture from the Division of Motor Vehicles.

"The policy of getting a driver's license photo instead of a police mug shot is just wrong — you're just inviting a mistake," Mallon said. “We hope that changes are made in the policies of Lakewood, Ocean County and Burlington County."

Follow Kathleen Hopkins on Twitter: @KHopkinsapp

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: New Jersey teacher jailed for 3 days after mistaken identity